Second home owners in Wales face soaring council tax bills after Labour-Plaid deal.

It is awful the way property prices have been forced up and out of reach of locals. Yes, holiday homes bring in income to local businesses when they are occupied but that is not for a large part of the year. I have family in Wales and they have said that cottages are being purchased without even viewing them, it is the same in Cornwall and Devon. Locals do not enjoy the invasion of some people who do not understand the local way of life and breathe a sigh of relief when they return to their normal homes.

why penalise the few who’ve invested their own hard earned income in a second home

To level things up a bit.
Fairness.
To get people out of rentals and into something which will provide more long term security.
Because a second home is a luxury/vanity/entitlement thing, not a necessity.
Because there is a housing shortage.
To keep small communities thriving.

Paying for hotels, flights, etc., is dead money whereas investing in a little bolt hole would make good sense for future security for those who are not rich enough to write off the loss.

Thus denying others the opportunity to have the security of just the one roof over their head.

Anniebach

Flying around the world would leave properties local workers
could buy to live where they work . Or stay in hotels again leaving properties those who work in hotels could afford to buy.

Local workers don’t exist without local jobs. This is why I feel we should invest in good high end local jobs first and the balance will follow.

Paying for hotels, flights, etc., is dead money whereas investing in a little bolt hole would make good sense for future security for those who are not rich enough to write off the loss.
Lots of empty semi derelict properties around the U.K. that could be brought up to date or rebuilt with the right investment to provide more housing, why penalise the few who’ve invested their own hard earned income in a second home.

I think you have a good point about London suffering equally in all this Riverwalk. It was impossible to keep good young teachers in our school because the cost of housing, (even if they had a partner) was sky high due to second home owners (often from overseas). Same for nurses.

Flying around the world would leave properties local workers
could buy to live where they work . Or stay in hotels again leaving properties those who work in hotels could afford to buy.

LauraNorderr

We do have two little holiday cottages near to us owned by nurses, two income families I suppose who choose to spend their income on property in the U.K. Better than flying around the world.

No reason why the alternative should be 'flying round the world'. What would be wrong with staying at a local hotel or in B&B?

Why is it OK to deprive the country of desperately needed homes?

How many second homes are there in the UK, I wonder?

772,000 households in England have second homes. Of these, 495,000 are in the UK. The actual number of second homes is higher, as some households have more than one.

One in 10 UK adults, or 5.2 million people, own a second home, while four in 10 adults own no property at all.

I agree with everthing Easybee said.

using the planning, property and taxation systems

This indicates that the means to implement the policy are already in existence - just a matter of political will.

We do have two little holiday cottages near to us owned by nurses, two income families I suppose who choose to spend their income on property in the U.K. Better than flying around the world.

I am fortunate to live in a beautiful part of England, and worked in the village where I live for twenty-five years. I spent more than half of my life living and working in the industrial Midlands, parts of which are also beautiful.
There is a village near me where 64% of the houses (cottages), are second homes/holiday lets, occupied for a maximum of a quarter of the year. The shops, Post office and school are long gone, now 'bijoux residences' and it is a ghost village completely out of reach for families who work in the area. People working on factory benches, nurses etc would never be able to afford a second home, let alone a first one, and the rents charged for holiday lets are extortionate.
I hope the tax on second homes applies in England very soon.
Incidentally, my village, which is thriving but not pretty, is inundated with hundreds of new -build homes crowded together because the pretty villages are able to refuse to have them because they have no facilities.

take immediate and radical action to address the proliferation of second homes and unaffordable housing, using the planning, property and taxation systems

It will be interesting to see how this pans out - it could be a blueprint for the rest of the UK.

In London and elsewhere large blocks of flats are built and due to the very high prices are mainly sold to overseas investors, second homes for country-dwellers, and buy-to-let landlords. Sometimes there is a small part of the development of 'affordable homes' where some hapless young person can buy 25% of a £600,000 one-bed flat, and pay rent on the remaining 75%.

I'm not one either, never have been.

I’m not one of those people MaizieD,
I believe that because we are born here by accident of birth we don’t have the right of ownership.
If people anywhere in the world want to give their family the best shot in life and feel that the U.K. is the right place for them, they have as much right as anyone to be here.

How many second homes are there in the UK, I wonder?

I'm finding it strange reading this thread when some of the defenders of 2nd home owning are on another thread telling us that we can't possibly take any more people into the UK because it's 'full' and, among other things, we're short of housing

nanna8

Well, as usual, the very rich won’t care and it will drive out the middle income ones which no doubt will please them. They always do well in every circumstance.

It's not that they don't care, it probably doesnt even cross their mind. What I mean is that if you have enough money to buy a holiday home in the first place you won't be worrying about paying higher council tax. I don't think it is about greed at all.
When we were working in London we bought a holiday cottage in Devon and used it at weekends to get out of the city with the children and dogs. My family members were also in Devon so it gave us the opportunity to be together. We probably spent more in farm shops, tourist attractions, petrol pumps, restaurants etc in the two days away, than we did in the 5 days back home.

They pay the same rates as everyone else in the area but only use the bin collection for half the year.

Well, as usual, the very rich won’t care and it will drive out the middle income ones which no doubt will please them. They always do well in every circumstance.

Lincslass

Better than setting them on fire.

second home owners or their second houses? either seems a tad extreme

I don’t think owning a second home is about greed. Should have been my opening. Predictive text decided otherwise

I forgot my think owning a second home is about greed. Some people have to live and work in the city but need a bolt hole somewhere peaceful to unwind.
My husband and I live in a big five bedroom house in the country. We have our shopping delivered, we rarely eat out, we have no children at the school, we fill our car up once a month if that. We contribute far less to the local economy than those with a second home here who fill up their car after travelling a distance, shop for a large family during the months they are here and eat out quite regularly.
Also lots of people who live here permanently send their children away to school so not helping to keep local schools open.
Too many variables to penalise one group for deciding to spend their hard earned income on a second home rather than foreign holidays or regular new car purchase or whatever else.

Better than setting them on fire.

Quite welbeck

I also think it the argument re council tax is absurd and people wouldn't wan't to pay towards bin collections, policing, the fire service, libraries and schools in the place where their second home was as surely they'd want a burglary investigating or a fire putting out, no litter on the street, an educated community ETC

well maybe it should be policed more.
if fewer people had two homes, more people could have one.
greed is not good, economically or morally.
when each prospers, we all prosper.
we are all inter-dependent, the pandemic has shewn that, how we need vital services provided by low wage earners.
and they deserve to live among us.